One reason might be that this would actually require them to be more truthful - the stories would more evidently hold up or fall apart as news broke and developed.

Another might be that if news is thought of as something more than a pellet of a slice of time, it would cease enjoying pure commodity status. News orgs thrive on the idea that a story dies fast, so that they can sell another story. Banks of data that store and enrich themselves over periods would cease to have that rapidfire obsolescence.

It's hard to pretend you have a new product each day when, in fact, you are offering additional layers to an existing entity. An entity that would pretend to remember public understanding of events.

If nothing else, this is another way that Google, by virtue of its power to ferret, is transforming the way news orgs have to conceive of their own bidzness.